Welcome to the Hangar for tonight’s match up against the MK Lightning. It’s our second meeting with Nick Poole’s team this week and third of the month. We journeyed to the Lightning’s home rink for a midweek fixture on Wednesday, last night we travelled to Bisonland to face Mo’s team and tonight we’re back on our home ice.
Last weekend saw another four points collected with wins over the Swindon Wildcats home and away. We started on the road on Saturday and shut them out while scoring seven and came home on Sunday and won again. 6-1 I think would have been a fair reflection of the home game but the two late powerplay goals I think flattered Swindon. With a midweek game and then two tough weekend games coming up I guess we eased off at the end of the game and the Wildcats capitalised.
So the run in is now underway as we are at the end of February and the fixtures are backing up for sure. We played a midweek game at the end of January against Bracknell, we’ve already played Guildford midweek this month and then MK away on Wednesday. We’ve got Guildford away next Wednesday as well so it’s getting no easier.
We’re not guaranteed a place in the Cup Final yet but we do have those four goals in our favour ahead of the second leg. The Bison will be hosting the first leg on Wednesday 9th March so should we make it that’ll be three consecutive weeks with midweek games. We’ll then have to schedule the second leg of the cup final as well plus a long midweek trip to Manchester in the middle of March and you can see we’re swamped with fixtures if we make the Cup Final.
That said though, and I’m not taking anything for granted, I feel that we’ll get a much better home and away final both hockey-wise and financially as it’s against the Bison than we would have with the Phoenix. I’m not sure how the Flames feel, if they make it, but from my point of view it would be a fantastic final.
Enough future predictions though for now and let’s look forward to tonight ….
While it’s not a back to back home and away weekend series given the closeness of the fixtures tonight should be a real cracker of a game. As I said to Steve Rockford on the air last weekend there’s not much in between 3, 4 and 5 in the table at the moment and MK have games in hand on both us and the Bison. In anything you can only control the controlables and that means winning our games and especially our games against MK.
I’m predicting a good game tonight and the perfect way to end the weekend.
Don’t forget Wednesday night we’re at the Spectrum for the second leg of the Cup Final as well. Face-off for that game is 7.30pm.
Enjoy tonight’s game.
My team, your team, OUR TEAM
Mark
